


Amazing Grace sequel ficlets

by AirgiodSLV



Series: Amazing Grace [2]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-07
Updated: 2010-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-19 01:34:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AirgiodSLV/pseuds/AirgiodSLV
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>It takes Arthur another full second to swing around and face the room he’d entered through, and by that time there’s already a man there pointing a gun at him. A very familiar man.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Between these stolen hours: Bhutan

Arthur enters Bhutan by way of the Indian border, getting a ride into Bapeta and hiking north. It’s not the most inconspicuous he’s ever been, but he’s lucky enough not to run into any local hostility along the way. The native predators, thankfully, are equally obliging. The weather is not.

His target is reported to be hiding out in a dzong near the Drangme Chhu, a location no doubt chosen for the lack of extradition treaties with the U.S. The terrain is admittedly beautiful, if you don’t mind slogging through humid, subtropical forests. Arthur supposes he should be grateful that it’s still the premonsoon season and not a month later.

There’s minimal security guarding the dzong, probably because the target – Darcy Ewles – was raised in upper-crust British society and views braving the wilderness outside his doorstep with something akin to well-bred horror. He also has very little reason to fear an outside assault, considering that he’s holed up in an 18th century fortress.

The only gaps in the high walls are narrow windows, far above ground level and covered with thick glass panes. There’s too much foot traffic at the main entrance, not to mention that’s where the guards are stationed. It’ll have to be the roof, then.

Arthur spends a full day doing surveillance, learning the routines and counting guards. Ideally he’d spend another two days to confirm the patterns, but he doesn’t have time on this one. The U.S. weren’t the only ones who’d been leaked Ewles’ location two days ago.

An hour after night falls, he climbs down the slope he’s been hiding out on and pulls his climbing gear out of his pack. The walls are too smooth and even for free climbing, but he sticks to natural handholds as much as he can, wary of disturbing anyone inside or on the ground.

From the roof, it’s an easy drop to the first floor, rappelling down the inside of the courtyard and swinging through an open window into Ewles’ room. At least the heat is also working in his favor.

When he hits the ground, dropping to a crouch to provide a smaller target, he hears movement. Then he hears a safety click off.

Arthur rolls to the side, moving away from the light coming through the window and putting some distance between himself and the location Ewles will most likely target. His eyes adjust quickly, but he can’t see anyone, just the faintest shadow stirring in the doorway to the bedroom.

He sweeps the room and steps in, aiming for the rush of movement to his left. It takes him less than a second to recognize that what’s caught his eye is a shirt on a hanger, swinging back and forth wildly from a coat tree hook in a way that can’t be anything but a deliberate ploy to catch his eye. In the remainder of that second, he registers a body lying prone on the bed. Ewles.

Next to him is the familiar outline of a PASIV.

It takes Arthur another full second to swing around and face the room he’d entered through, and by that time there’s already a man there pointing a gun at him. A very familiar man.

“Yusuf?” Arthur hisses, startled into breaking his silence.

“Arthur,” Yusuf returns. “It’s been a while.”

“I’d ask what you were doing here, but I think I already know.” Arthur keeps his tone relaxed enough, but he doesn’t lower his gun. Neither, he notices, does Yusuf.

“So it seems. Would you mind telling me why the American government has an interest in a British expatriate?”

“It’s the ex part,” Arthur answers. “That always gets them worked up.” He doesn’t so much as twitch his shoulder to indicate the PASIV when he asks, “Planning on going under, or have you already been?”

Yusuf sighs very softly. “Apparently my plans have changed, as I can hardly go under with you here.”

“I can’t get what I need with you here either,” Arthur points out. “We could always cooperate.”

“Are you really authorized to make that kind of a deal?”

“As long as I get the information, I don’t see a problem,” Arthur says honestly. “My job isn’t to stop anyone else from getting it.”

They stand frozen for a few seconds longer. Then: “We both get we came for,” Yusuf agrees, lowering his gun. “But if you cross me, I do have a team outside.”

Arthur privately has his doubts about that. He can understand – although he’ll still kick himself for it – missing one man in the forest, but he can’t imagine not noticing a whole team of them. It’s a moot point anyway; he has no intention of double-crossing Yusuf. His chances of making it out of Bhutan would significantly lessen if he did.

“We’ll have twenty minutes in the dream,” Yusuf tells him as they swab and prep. “The scenario is a bank robbery. Ewles used to work–”

“Bank of England, I know,” Arthur finishes. “We force him to open the vault for us, clean it out into a waiting escape vehicle?”

“Armored car,” Yusuf replies, grinning. “Reinforcing the idea of security heightens the strength of the information.”

“Smart idea,” Arthur says, impressed.

“I’ll give you partial credit,” Yusuf tells him. “I picked it up from your friend Saito. Ready?”

They go under, into the grand, echoing lobby of a bank, filled with men and women wearing business attire and striding purposefully through the open space. Arthur takes a moment to get his bearings and make eye contact with Yusuf, and then he takes a deep breath and dreams up a sub-automatic.

The first round explodes in a loud burst, directed toward the ceiling. Over the screams of panicked customers, Arthur bellows, “Everybody down!”

He spots Ewles behind the counter at a teller’s station within a few seconds, but Yusuf is already there, rifle aimed at Ewles’ head. “Take us to the vault,” Yusuf demands, and with his hands trembling on the entry pads, Ewles leads the way.

From there, it’s a cakewalk.

They’re in and out of the bank within eight minutes, and Ewles is so shaken that his projections don’t try anything, they just cower on the floor with their hands on their heads as instructed. Arthur takes the bags of money out to the armored car parked in the alley, slinging them up into the vault. They can sort through the bags once they’re clear to find the information they’re looking for.

“Let’s go,” Arthur says, swinging up into the cab. Yusuf is already in the driver’s seat, and they screech out of the alley a second later, heading for the freeway.

“Any sign of pursuit?” Yusuf asks, glancing in the mirror. Arthur twists around, the flashy sub-automatic traded for the familiar weight of his Glock in his hand, and scans the road behind them for signs of pursuit.

“I think we’re in the clear,” he reports. “We can ditch the car and check the bags off the next exit.”

“All work and no play,” Yusuf chides, tutting in a way only the British seem to be able to pull off. “We have ten more minutes, don’t we? I thought we could take some time to get reacquainted. Catch up on things. How have you been?”

Arthur had forgotten how good-naturedly disarming Yusuf can be. “Exit,” he orders. “I’ll catch up with you when we’re safely over the border into India. What’s your planned route out?”

“As if I would tell you,” Yusuf says cheerfully. “This exit?”

“Yes,” Arthur confirms. He turns around again as they leave the highway, putting pressure on the dream, feeling the resistance of another’s mind. Behind them, the pavement disintegrates, disappearing beneath a fresh layer of grass and weeds as the highway exit ceases to be.

“Nice trick,” Yusuf comments when Arthur turns around again.

“Mal,” Arthur says. “And Ariadne.” He catches himself right after he says it, but Yusuf is one of the rare people who knows who he means. Everyone in Rhiannon’s department ends up perplexed each time Arthur comes in calling her by another name.

“You should keep watching our backs,” Yusuf suggests, driving them off the crumbling road into a patch of weeds and refuse. “It’s a nice view from where I’m sitting.”

Arthur twists around so fast he hears something in his neck pop. “Excuse me?”

Yusuf just leers at him by way of answer, leaving Arthur gaping stupidly as they shift into park. “Don’t look so surprised, love,” he says, his brogue thickening almost to the point of unintelligibility. “An arse like that, you must have men offering compliments daily.”

“Not usually while I have a gun in my hand,” Arthur says truthfully. Yusuf just grins.

Arthur is sliding out of the cab to open up the back when he sees another vehicle kicking up dust from the direction of the highway, heading rapidly in their direction.

“We’ve got company,” he warns, moving behind the open door of the armored car and leveling his Glock at the oncoming vehicle. It looks like a motorcycle, the lone rider masked by a helmet. Arthur takes a half-step to the side to avoid glare and takes aim.

“I’ll get the bags,” Yusuf calls. “Cover me.”

The problem is that Arthur doesn’t know who the rider is. If it’s a projection, Arthur can pick him off in a heartbeat, followed by the next twenty who come after him. If it’s Ewles, however, they might have trouble. They can’t let Ewles wake up first.

“Yusuf,” he yells over the roar of the approaching bike engine. “Tell me you’ve found it.”

“It’s not Ewles, is it?” Yusuf yells back. “Fuck, do you think it’s another team?”

The possibility has definitely occurred to him. “I don’t know,” he answers. “Let’s not take chances; find the fucking information and let’s get out of here.”

“If it is another extractor, they must be bloody brilliant,” Yusuf shouts jovially. “We’ve only been down here, what, three and a half minutes since the drop?”

Arthur is saved from responding to that by the motorcycle skidding to a halt fifty feet away, the rider dismounting with more haste than grace. “Arthur,” the man yells, which is a shock that almost puts Arthur’s finger on the trigger. He’s had experience with rogue projections; he remembers what happened to Mal in Cobb’s mind. The idea that he’s brought something like that in here with him makes his entire body turn cold.

Then the rider rips the helmet off, and he sees Yusuf’s familiar curls springing free of their confinement. “Don’t shoot!” Yusuf yells, waving his arms as he runs toward the car.

Arthur stares. Then he sweeps his gun around to face the back of the car, where…

“Looking for this?” Eames inquires. He holds up a black USB drive and smiles. Arthur grits his teeth.

“This is your idea of cooperation?” he snarls at Yusuf, without taking his gun off Eames.

“Ah, ah,” Eames chides. “Blow me out of the dream and I’ll only wake first. I don’t think you can afford that, considering.”

“He’s not with me,” Yusuf insists, keeping both hands where Arthur can see them. Not that it matters; he’s outnumbered even if Yusuf is telling the truth. “He locked me in the bloody vault, I thought he was with you!”

“Who are you working for?” Arthur asks Eames, voice cold.

Eames cocks his head. “Would you believe me if I said France?”

“No.”

“In that case,” Eames says, smiling, “France.”

“ _Eames._ ”

“I’d love to chat, really, but I’m afraid I must be going. It’s been lovely, we must do it again sometime.” Eames pauses, and his smile changes, shading into something more intimate. “I have to say, Arthur, I’m surprised you haven’t come looking for me yet.”

Eames draws a gun from somewhere, possibly thin air, and Arthur has to fight his reflexes to keep from shooting as Eames raises it. In his peripheral vision, he sees Yusuf draw and aim, but Eames just tucks the muzzle under his chin.

“Stop,” Arthur orders.

Eames raises an eyebrow at him. “Or you’ll do what, exactly?”

Arthur’s curse is lost in the sharp crack of the retort. He’s lifting his own gun to his skull even before Eames’ body hits the ground.

“Wait!” Yusuf shouts. When Arthur hesitates, Yusuf crosses the last of the distance between them. “Wait for the time to run out. If he’s changed the sedative levels, we could incapacitate ourselves by waking up too soon.”

“You think he’s changed the levels?” Arthur asks sharply.

Yusuf shrugs. “It’s what I would do.”

Arthur curses again. He searches Eames’ body, but the USB drive has vanished, along with its thief. Eames must have gotten what he wanted before they’d ever caught on that he was here.

“He’s baiting me,” Arthur says flatly, leaning back against the side of the car. The horizon looks clear; as disruptive as Eames’ appearance had been for them, it hasn’t unsettled the dream.

“He’s not working for France,” Yusuf comments, coming up next to him.

Arthur gives him a look. “No, _really?_ ”

Yusuf gracefully ignores his display of temper. “Why would he be baiting you?”

Arthur hesitates. The sedative hasn’t worn off yet, though, and there’s really no harm in telling. Nothing hurt but his pride. “We slept together,” he says finally. “After all of us worked together that time.”

“I’m shocked,” Yusuf says. “Truly.”

Arthur grimaces. “He left the morning after,” he says. “Along with my hard drive.”

Yusuf stares at him.

Then he starts laughing.

Arthur wants to lash out, but he really does deserve it. Only a fool – a besotted, lust-addled fool – would be stupid enough to leave Eames unsupervised around sensitive information for any period of time.

“Ah, my friend,” Yusuf sighs, wiping tears from his eyes. “You know what they say. Love is the only true adventure.”

That, Arthur thinks, is the truth.


	2. Timestamp: 5 years after Amazing Grace

Arthur is expecting another agent. He’s counting on it, actually, because he doesn’t have the security codes he needs to get into his target’s office, and the PASIV case riding in his backpack is too conspicuous to go unremarked for long.

He’s not expecting two.

“This feels familiar,” Yusuf comments, re-holstering the gun he’d been in the process of leveling at Arthur’s head. “I think we’ve been here before.”

Arthur is furiously coming up with both a response and a Plan B when he hears a noise behind him and turns, raising his own sidearm and aiming straight at Eames’ chest.

“Wait,” Yusuf says quickly. “This time he is with me.”

Arthur’s finger itches to break trigger discipline. “Is he?” he asks levelly, holding Eames’ gaze. He doesn’t lower the gun.

Eames eyes both Arthur and his semi-automatic with justifiable caution. “Technically,” he hazards, “I’m with both of you.”

From the noise he makes, Arthur imagines Yusuf would like to have his own gun pointed at Eames right now. At least Arthur’s not the only one Eames left out of this particular loop.

Eames wisely keeps his attention on the man currently holding him at gunpoint. “Look, you needed security codes, he needed someone to smuggle in a PASIV. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.”

“And you get paychecks from two governments,” Arthur guesses.

Eames smiles at him in a way that’s intimate enough to make Arthur want to lower the gun. He doesn’t. “I prefer to think of it as helping out multiple good friends.”

Arthur’s jaw tics. He tells himself it’s because Eames is an unpredictable pain in his ass and not because he just referred to Arthur as a friend. “That doesn’t explain,” he begins, and then freezes as a staccato burst of gunfire echoes down the hallway from somewhere nearby.

Voices start shouting in Arabic, and then, notably, in French. “There’s another fucking team in here?” Arthur bites out.

Eames raises his hands. “I swear to God,” he says, and the fuck of it is, Arthur believes him. Eames might indulge in double-dealing if he benefits from it, but he wouldn’t double-cross. Not Arthur.

“We need a way out of here,” Yusuf interjects, already halfway to the door. He’s just reached it when another burst of gunfire erupts, close enough that Yusuf pulls back and kicks the door shut.

“Window,” Arthur says, because that had been his primary extraction route, and it’s in the opposite direction of all the commotion.

He pulls the shades and is about to raise the windowpane when he sees the telltale glint of metal in sunlight.

“Sniper,” he snaps, and hits the floor, dragging Eames with him along the way. They both roll for cover against the wall just as the window shatters inward, spraying them with broken glass.

A second later, someone starts trying to kick the door in.

“We’re pinned down,” Arthur shouts, crawling far enough to check that Yusuf’s all right. Yusuf flashes him an okay sign and shoves an antique scroll top desk in front of the door, where it’s promptly chewed up by another round from the sniper.

“Take out the sniper, we can still leave through the window,” Yusuf calls over, and Arthur is already on it, moving in front of Eames and raising above the window ledge just far enough to spot and get two rounds off in the direction of their unknown hostile.

He’s aware in the back of his mind that Eames is probably not going to be pleased about Arthur pulling him out of the line of fire, but while Yusuf is a fellow intelligence agent and Arthur trusts that he can take care of himself, Eames is a civilian with considerably less experience being shot at by rooftop snipers. At least, Arthur hopes that’s the case.

He’s also aware that he’s put Eames at his back, in spite of the fact that Eames has shown yet again that Arthur shouldn’t trust him farther than he can throw him. He shouldn’t. He does anyway.

Neither of these facts has apparently escaped Yusuf, either. “This is quite touching,” he calls over the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire. “No one’s ever come rushing to my defense during a shootout.”

“It’s my innate charm,” Eames says, and then, inexplicably, “Here, use this.”

There’s a jangle of metal and a loud thump, and when Arthur twists around to look, Yusuf has used Eames’ multi-tool to remove the doorknob and is shooting through the circular gap, the scroll top desk on its side to shield him from the window.

“I don’t know if I’d call it charm,” Yusuf muses, while Arthur wastes another two rounds trying to take out the fucking sniper. “Then again, I’ve never conned a CIA agent into bed, so maybe I’m wrong. Stolen any hard drives recently?”

Arthur shoots a glare at Yusuf in between shots, but that’s wasted as well, because Yusuf is busy keeping the door clear.

“Do me a favor, would you, Yusuf?” Eames requests politely. “Not while he’s armed.”

Arthur kneels up and sends another four shots in quick succession toward the rooftop. Eames reaches an arm around his waist, careful not to disturb Arthur’s balance, and pulls his secondary sidearm out of his thigh holster.

“I suppose you don’t want me to make any cracks about him needing any help with that sniper, either,” Yusuf replies.

“Wait for two more shots,” Eames calls back over his shoulder as he angles himself toward the window, mirroring Arthur’s position. “Then he’ll have to reload.”

Arthur tries not to be touched that Eames is keeping such careful watch over him, and fails utterly, particularly when the next thing Eames does is lay cover fire for him while he drops and reloads. “Keep track of your own bullets, Eames,” he says, snapping the magazine into place.

“What I wouldn’t give for a grenade launcher,” Eames muses aloud. “You know, there’s a touching moment that comes to mind in this situation, but you weren’t actually there for it.”

Arthur waits until Eames has fired off two more rounds and dropped, then counts to two and rises. One double-tap later, their sniper situation is no longer a problem.

It’s years of discipline that keep him from kissing Eames right there under the window ledge, and even then he’s temped. He reminds himself that they have both a mission and an audience, and signals to Yusuf that the window is clear.

“Tell me later,” he says to Eames instead, a promise that there will be one, and clears their way out of there.


End file.
